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Paul Maurice used to be coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. When they were losing, as they always do up to and including Tuesday night, everybody would have a fit and Maurice would say: "Everybody breathe deep, go home, drink some camomile tea. Relax."

Which is what I wish the people who run Formula One would do. They are so frantic that fewer people are attending the sport in person or watching it on TV or via Live Streaming that they just can’t bring themselves to leave well enough alone. They have to tinker and tinker and tinker.

As we all know, everything in racing is now so officially regulated that it borders on the insane. The sport — and this includes NASCAR and IndyCar too — is off-kilter in so many ways.

F1 is now contemplating — this has been been approved, by the way; just the details remain to be worked out — a form of musical chairs be injected into qualifying. The people who thought this up are now so divorced from reality that they think it will really work.

This is what has been proposed and adopted:

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Q1 will now last 16 minutes and after seven minutes the slowest driver will take no further part in the session. Every 90 seconds thereafter, the slowest will be knocked out until there are only 15 drivers remaining.

After a short break, Q2 will commence and last 15 minutes with the slowest driver eliminated after six minutes. As was the case in Q1, the slowest driver at the time will be knocked out at 90-second intervals until eight remain.

Q3 will last 14 minutes and see the process repeated again with the slowest taking no further part after five minutes. The next five drivers will drop out at 90-second intervals leaving the final two drivers to fight it out for pole in the final 90 seconds.

There are now officially too many people in the world with not enough to do. That's why stuff like this gets dreamed up and people who live their entire lives inside the F1 bubble clap their hands with glee when they hear it and say, "What a wonderful idea!"

The change will require ratification by the World Motor Sport Council, which is to meet March 4. I have a friend on that board. Maybe he'll put up his hand and say something like: "Is there anybody else here who thinks this is kinda silly?"

One thing F1 did do this week that makes sense is announce that as of 2017, a "halo" will be attached to the open cockpits to protect drivers against impacts from large airborne debris. The Grand Prix Drivers Association had insisted on it. As a media release stated, the "halo" would likely not have done much to save the life of the late Jules Bianchi but stop incidents like the one that killed IndyCar driver Justin Wilson, who was hit in the face by a nose-cone that had come off a car that had been in a wreck.

It's ironic, then, that one of the first things IndyCar's new vice president of competition and race engineering, Bill Pappas, said after his appointment was announced is that cockpit driver protection is not yet the priority. Better hope nobody else gets hurt. However, to IndyCar's credit, nose-cones will be tethered this season so, hopefully, there won't be a repeat of Wilson's accident.

IndyCar seems to be going the way of CART in the early 1990s, which could be a good thing or bad, depending. The second F1 driver in a week — Alexander Rossi — was assigned the fourth car in the Andretti Autosport (with Bryan Herta) team. That announcement followed the one from Chip Ganassi that Max Chilton would drive the fourth car in his team this season.

Now, the fact that F1-calibre drivers are choosing to race Indy cars in North America over another season in — say — GP2 has got to be viewed as positive. Obviously, the calibre of racing in IndyCar is at least as good as the top tier in Europe.

(Please don't write me and say that the reason those guys are on this side of the Atlantic is because they couldn't get a ride in GP2; while that could be true, there are other options in Europe for F1-drivers-in-waiting and the fact they chose IndyCar over those is an indication that they know the level of competition is at least as good and their skills will be put to a true test.)

On the other hand, as CART became more and more like F1 in the early ’90s, NASCAR started to become the series of choice for millions who preferred to watch homeboys ride into battle. While CART had drivers like Didier Theys, Gregor Foitek and Christian Danner (and let’s never forget Guido Dacco), NASCAR had Dale Earnhardt, Bill Elliott, Jimmy Spencer, Geoff Bodine and all those guys. Guess who won that little battle for loyalty?

IndyCar keeps talking about appealing to the mainstream. And while Max Chilton and Alexander Rossi (who's from California but it's guaranteed that everybody will think he's Italian) might be great racing drivers, they are occupying seats at the expense of guys like Sage Karam and Bryan Clauson, who could be great racing drivers if given the opportunity and the seat time and are certainly more North American mainstream than the first two.

But time will tell. The world is changing and it's sure not 1992 any more.

Hey, remember the first time back in 1999 during F1 pre-season testing when Jacques Villeneuve drove out of the pits in the brand-new BAR car and got up to speed and the rear wing fell off? That was very symbolic, because the BAR team never really recovered from that inauspicious beginning.

Well, the other day, in F1 pre-season testing, Romain Grosjean drove out of the pits in the brand-new Haas F1 car and got up to speed and the front wing fell off. However, Haas appears to have its act together much more than BAR did back in the last century and since then has shown that while it won't be challenging Mercedes and Ferrari, it's in the best of the rest mix and far from being the slowest. Esteban Gutierrez was sixth of 11 drivers on track Tuesday, beating Valtteri Bottas in the Williams, Fernando Alonso in the McLaren and Max Verstappen in the Toro Rosso, among others. And yes, I know it’s just testing, but still . . .

Maybe Haas will surprise in 2016.

Talking about Jacques Villeneuve, the BAR car he drove in the Spanish and German Grand Prix races in 2001 will be sold at auction in Los Angeles on Thursday. Bidding is to start at $100,000 and includes the gearbox and the wrapping (BAR-Honda logos, Lucky Strike, etc.) but not an engine. The auctioneer, Nate D. Sanders Auctions, says the car is in "very good condition."

Talking about pre-season testing (we are bouncing around a bit today, aren't we?), the IndyCar teams are heading for Phoenix this weekend. Once upon a time, Phoenix was a bit like the mile oval at Milwaukee, in that it was a dandy place for Indy cars to race. But a few years ago, NASCAR increased the banking in the turns to make it a better speedway for stock-car racing and I admit to being nervous about the Indy cars going back there. They are wise to go there for a full-on practice before going there to race in April.

Oh, Scott Hargrove, the marvelously talented B.C. driver who wins in just about every series he enters, will be practicing in a Team Pelfrey Indy Lights car at Phoenix and will be on the Lights grid for the first IndyCar race weekend in St. Petersburg in mid-March. Hargrove is optimistic that he will have the funding to run the entire 2016 season.

IndyCar announced today (Wednesday) that two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Arie Luyendyk, former Indy car driver Max Papis and longtime motorsports executive Dan Davis will be stewards at all IndyCar races this season. The stewards will report to Jay Frye, IndyCar’s president of of competition and operations. This sounds like a really positive step.

The NASCAR news of the day is that starting next year, Stewart-Haas Racing will use Ford Fusions in the Sprint Cup Series. The engines will be prepared by Roush Yates. The team has always run Chevies.

Said Stewart: “I am proud of our association with Chevrolet as they helped build our organization into the team it is today. This new partnership with Ford allows us to strengthen our position in the sport and ensure the long-term stability and success for everyone who is a part of Stewart-Haas Racing.”

I wonder if Ford might consider a return to F1 in a partnership with Gene Haas? We’ll see.

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